Johnny Manziel sat down for an interview with ESPN’s Joe Tessitore at SEC media day on Wednesday morning, and he answered the tough questions with a great deal of poise. This was clearly something Manziel prepared for and was coached on.

As expected, Tessitore asked Manziel about the report that the quarterback was sent home from the Manning Passing Academy by Archie Manning after showing up late on Saturday. Manziel said that he simply overslept, firmly denying the rumor that he was late because he partied too hard on Friday night and was hungover.

“Absolutely not,” Manziel said before being asked if he drank alcohol at all while he was away for the camp. “I’m not going to go into details about what happened at the Manning camp. We had social events. Got a chance to really socialize.

“Missing the meeting wasn’t anything due to the night prior. It wasn’t anything involved in that. It was just simply my phone died, I overslept, I woke up the next morning whenever I did, went and talked to them and it was kind of a mutual decision to get home and get some time to relax.”

Smart move. Manziel is 20 years old, so he can’t admit he was drinking. At the same time, he knows better than to flat-out deny having a beer. As soon as he does, a picture will be up on Twitter of him pounding a Bud Light and he’ll be labeled a liar.

Manziel said a hangover had nothing to do with his dismissal, but he admitted he had no excuse for how things turned out.

“For me to not fulfill my obligations of being there for the morning meeting — it was an accident — but there’s no excuse for it,” he said. “It was absolutely my fault. I take full responsibility for that.”

All in all, Manziel handled himself about as well as he could have. Most people aren’t going to believe him that he was not hungover anyway, partly because of photos like this that we have shown you in the past. Maybe next time he should set a backup alarm just in case.